Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere
by Civilized Lee
Summary: They won't live forever, so why not live for now? [femmeslash; rated for sexual content]
1. (Time to Dirty Up Your) Halo

"There are no good girls gone wrong – just bad girls found out." — Mae West

* * *

Being good is overrated, she thinks.

She's tried to be good her whole life, and it's amounted to this. This cold, empty chamber: one that's become more of a prison to her since it was built.

_Show me Jack._

And there's her warden.

One of the screens hanging on the walls flickers for a moment before displaying a feed from a security camera in Opportunity. Jack keeps an eye on her every movement. It's only fair that she do the same to him.

The feed switches as Jack walks out of view of the camera, and into the range of another. There's no hiding from Hyperion in Opportunity.

Her father's new girlfriend is with him. She looks so out of place in a city with such sharp and precise angles as Opportunity. An icthid out of water. Why is he with her, anyway? Damned hypocrite. Always going on about how everyone on this planet without their last name is bandit scum. And here he is, schmoozing one of them up. What does he see in her?

Of course, Angel knows what he sees in her. What he sees in her is on prominent display on the camera feed from security camera 6B.

Maybe they're not so different though, her father and his new girlfriend. Maybe he's found somebody as vain as he is. She clearly puts a lot of effort into her appearance.

_Zoom in_.

They're both peacocking. Does she _always_ wear that much makeup? And he doesn't wear that suit very often anymore. He used to. She remembers from when she was younger, when her parents would go out on dates together. He'd wear that dark blue blazer and that sharp, pinstriped shirt, with that embroidered pocket square peeking out of the jacket pocket. Mom would usually wear her long, purple satin dress.

"_How do I look, Angel?" her mother asks, turning away from the mirror to look at her six-year-old daughter sitting on top of the desk by the wall._

"_You look like a queen, mommy!"_

The girlfriend's dress is purple too, Angel notices. It's eye-catching too, but not in the same way her mother's dress was. Her mother exuded _grace_ in that purple dress. Her mother was classy, and elegant, and beautiful in a very modest way that Angel always wanted to be. The girlfriend... it doesn't look like the word _subtle_ is even in this woman's vocabulary, from her overdone makeup, to the spats on her shoes and the mismatched leggings, the generous amount of skin on display on her chest and her thighs, to the top hat resting askew on her chestnut hair.

Still, Angel supposes she might be beautiful, underneath all that. Angel isn't naïve. She knows there's more to beauty than just grace and class.

She does get the sneaking suspicion that her father isn't concerned with such intricacies, though. The girlfriend, for her part, doesn't seem to mind.

But Angel has seen this enough times to know how it will turn out.

Her father is used to getting what he wants. They'll go along with it at first, because he can give them what they want, too. He's got the power, the money, and the means. But what then, when the novelty of that wears off? What about when the girlfriend wants more? Or what if she realizes he isn't interested in her for _her_?

What will she do then?

* * *

"I love you."

Angel hears the familiar, distant grinding of gears, signaling the opening of the doors to her chamber. She can hear her father's footsteps echoing through the ventilation shafts. Twelve steps to the elevator. He's walking a bit quicker than usual. Must have been a good date. Angel wouldn't know. She didn't watch the whole thing.

The elevator takes exactly forty seconds to descend into the Control Core. Angel always spends it reflecting on the passcode, because that's as long as she can think of those three words before she starts to get angry at him again. It's been so long since somebody other than Jack said those words to her that she can't even imagine the words in anybody else's voice but his.

The elevator only takes forty seconds to complete its descent, but her father has the annoying habit of making that forty seconds seem like hours. She can picture the smirk that will be plastered onto that Hyperion-issued dermaform mask once those doors open, and that staged, pretentious air to his voice.

She pinches the bridge of her nose as she hears the elevator slowly quieting down. Sometimes just waiting for him to get down there is more painful than the conversations they have once he does.

She takes a deep breath, mentally steeling herself for whatever task he has in mind for her today. She hasn't slept in over 30 hours. She isn't in the most cooperative of moods.

Angel lets out a sigh and lets the emotion drain out of her face as the doors slowly open.

"How are we doing, Angel?" he asks jovially, rubbing his hands together and walking inside. The doors slowly close behind him. There _is_ a certain bounce to his step today. Her ears weren't deceiving her. Her senses rarely do, thanks to the eridium.

He's not actually interested in how she's doing, of course, and she won't insult herself by pretending he is. She gets right down to business. "Seven prospective Vault hunters died in one of your train stations today," she states, without a shred of emotion in her voice.

Jack chuckles. "You know, I thought I'd have to keep thinking up new ways to kill these treasure-hunting chumps, but they keep falling for the same trap, over and over again."

Angel doesn't respond, choosing just to wait for him to finish praising himself for his brilliance. As if _he_ was the one that orchestrated all of this. As if _he_ is the one networked into the entire corporation's infrastructure. She bites the inside of her cheek.

"But what about people we can actually _use_? Have you found any that aren't complete idiots yet?"

"Not yet. But that reminds me, I've been looking into some reports from the Aeschylus lab-"

"Angel, you know I don't like you listening to those," Jack chides her.

Angel barely suppresses a dry laugh. The _gall_ he has, to say that to her face and act as if he's trying to protect her. As if she hasn't already gone through the nausea and the hallucinations and the insomnia that result from eridium injections. No, of course, he's just trying to protect her from _that_ reality, because it's too horrifying for her to even see it.

"As I was saying, it sounds like one of the... _experiments_," she says, making her distaste for her father's euphemism for 'human beings' quite apparent, "...has been causing quite a bit of … trouble."

"Wha, what do you mean, 'trouble'? What's going on?"

"Well, three of your scientists are dead."

Angel's voice is so flat, Jack can't even tell that she was happy to hear the news. She has become quite adept at sounding detached of emotion over the years. Showing emotion is a sign of weakness. Or so he taught her.

Jack scratches his chin. "Huh," he mutters, a hint of mild interest to his voice, as if he's just learned that bladeflowers aren't technically flowers.

"Last I checked, they were isolating the subject. The sedatives they used on him had no effect."

He glances around, then examines the fingernails on his left hand. "Keep an eye on it."

"Yes, sir."

Jack nods and strokes the chin on his mask. Angel realizes he didn't just come here to check on how their mission was going. For a second, she wonders just what he _is_ there for, but it strikes her like a brick to the face when he starts glancing around and rocking forward and back on the balls of his feet.

She sighs. He's so transparent. "How was your date?"

"Oh, you knew about that?" Her father can fake a lot of things, but surprise isn't one of them. He grins to himself and scratches his chin. "Well, it was great, Angel, thank you for asking."

Angel isn't amused. She isn't amused by the fact that her father was out there enjoying himself while she's chained up here, but she's even less amused by his hypocrisy. This planet's full of bandit scum, he always says – except when it suits him.

She narrows her eyes. Oh, how she would love to wipe that self-assured smirk off his face.

"Do you love her?" she asks.

Jack cringes, and Angel feels her mouth curling into a smirk despite herself. "What? It was our _second date_, Angel," he says through gritted teeth, running his hand down over his mask.

She can sense his discomfort over the question. Good. He'd better be uncomfortable. "You always told me you loved Mom the first time you met her."

He shuts his eyes and takes a breath. "Angel..." Jack says in a warning tone. "Don't you do this."

Angel sits down and looks away, folding her arms over her chest and crossing her right leg over her left. She isn't sure she can even say anything without her voice quivering and betraying her anger, so she stays silent instead.

"It has been eight years since you-"

"Nine. _Nine_ years," she seethes. "And _I _didn't-"

"_Nine_ years! You're going to have to let her go at some point."

She shoots him a glare. They both know that's not going to happen. She can see that he knows it too, so he tries to avoid the subject entirely.

"You know what, Angel? I had a good time with Moxxi tonight. And I'm not going to let you ruin that."

She sighs as her father turns and walks back to the blast doors, slowly sliding open as he approaches them.

"Keep me updated on that lab, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"Angel."

She stares ahead silently.

"Angel?"

She sighs and rolls her eyes. "I love you."

"I love you too, honey."

* * *

Moxxi is an easy woman for Angel to find.

Most people are easy for Angel to find, of course. She has a talent for finding people. Moxxi is just easier than most to track down. She doesn't exactly live her life in the shadows.

What Angel doesn't get is how Jack met her. She lives out in the Deep Fathoms, which is hardly somewhere the President of Hyperion would want to be seen. Not that there's anybody out there to see him, really.

She tries to avoid thinking of how it happened. Even if she knew how, she doubts it would make sense to her. He was probably looking for more bandits to kill, and then stopped when he saw her cleavage on display. A true fairy-tale story they'll probably tell their children.

Angel starts laughing at the mental image of Jack and Moxxi having children. Moxxi cradling a tiny little baby with a mask bracketed to its face. Jack scolding his daughter for wearing so much makeup.

Her father was handsome before she gave him his scar, she supposes. It's been so long since she's seen his real face, though, she can't remember for sure. The mask is ridiculous, though. He might have been handsome, but he wasn't _that_ handsome. She picks up a mirror and looks at her own face, putting her fingertips to her nose, her lips, her cheeks.

Why didn't he just have the mask be made in his old image, before the scar? Why did he need the bridge of his nose more defined, or his jawline so sharp, or his cheek bones so prominent?

She wonders if he sometimes expects to see his old self when he looks in the mirror in the mornings, while his mind is still half-asleep, before he remembers he's on Pandora, before he remembers the disfiguring scar on his burned flesh.

Jack's mask hides his true face. Moxxi's mask just accentuates hers. Her teal eyes stand out more when her lashes are heavy with mascara. Even moreso against the white face paint, and the rouge on her cheeks. She doesn't make an effort to hide the mole over her lip, either. Rather, she embraces it, draws attention to it by deliberately _not_ concealing it.

Angel knows this, because Angel has found plenty of information on Moxxi. Angel has seen pictures of Moxxi without makeup. Moxxi is a wanted woman, quite literally.

Surprisingly, she doesn't look bad in her mugshot. She seems to live for the camera, no matter the reason her picture is being taken, no matter who's behind it.

Moxxi stands five foot, three inches, according to the barred lines behind her, though the heels she's usually in push her up to 5'6", at least. Hair brown, eyes blue, according to the old Atlas profile Angel has brought up.

Wanted for lewd behavior, indecent exposure... Angel isn't surprised about that. Not that she's judging, either. It's not the place of Pandora's Guardian Angel to judge.

Wanted for harboring a fugitive, aiding and abetting somebody charged with desertion, and conspiracy to murder? Angel didn't see _that_ coming.

Maybe Moxxi doesn't wear her mask because she's ashamed of what she sees in the mirror. Maybe she wears it to fool others into thinking she's not as dangerous as she really is.

Angel has a few pictures of Moxxi in makeup, still frames grabbed from the surveillance footage while Jack showed her around his city. Her eyes are wide, the look of a woman who has clearly never seen a skyscraper before. Her mouth hangs just slightly open in one of them as she looks up at one of the towering buildings. If Moxxi was impressed with Opportunity, Angel thinks she would lose her mind if she took an interplanetary shuttle to Kravatia.

If she had seen her mugshot without any context, Angel wouldn't even believe it was the same person. Her unkempt chestnut hair almost covers her face more than it frames it. Her eyebrows are pointed down in the middle; her nostrils are flared; her lips are parted and her teeth bared in a snarl. She holds a black card with a six-digit number in front of her chest, her white knuckles aligned with its edges. Below the numbers, in white block lettering, reads "HAVEN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY".

The only similarity is those piercing teal eyes. They're softer in the pictures with makeup, yes, but they are undeniably the same.

Angel has often thought of trying to warn Jack's various girlfriends about him, about the kind of person he really is, behind the mask. She considers doing the same for Moxxi, but it's clear that the woman is capable of handling herself.

There's something chilling, something _ferocious_ about the snarl on Moxxi's face in her mugshot. Angel vaguely recollects a memory of her childhood.

"_Mom, get out here!"_

_Angel hears the door open behind her, and her mother instantly lets out a small yelp. "Angel, get away from that!"_

"_But it's hurt! It needs help!"_

_The cat's back is arched, and the fur on its tail stands on end, the animal's attempt to look bigger and scare the young girl away._

"_It's okay, kitty," Angel says in the softest tone she can manage._

"_Angel, your father will be home soon, just let him take care of it!"_

_The cat hisses and swipes a paw at Angel, narrowly missing her skin. The blood matted on its fur is slowly thickening, small droplets splattering onto the dirt beneath it. It backs up into the corner of the fence, and Angel slowly walks towards it as non-threateningly as she can._

_Angel's mother pulls her back just as the wounded cat makes another swipe at her._

"_I know you're just trying to help, baby," she says softly, running her hand over her daughter's hair. "But you can't walk up to a cornered animal like that. That only leaves it with one way to escape."_

_Angel leans back into her mother's body, watching the cat as it flicks its tail and eyes her nervously._

Maybe Jack is the one that needs to be warned.

* * *

Angel generally doesn't take much interest in her father's various girlfriends. Most of them, he's not with long enough for her to even learn their names. They always seem like her father's attempt to replace her mother. Not for Angel's benefit, of course, but his own. Angel doesn't want a replacement.

She's becoming fascinated with Moxxi, though. Moxxi isn't anything like the others. Moxxi is _bad_, and she doesn't give a shit what people think about her.

Angel has had to be good her whole life, because good girls aren't noticed. Good girls don't stand out. Good girls blend in, and that's what Angel had to do to survive – or so her father told her.

Her mother is the only reason she was allowed to have friends when she was in school. John was terrified that her tattoos would get her noticed, so her mother compromised and covered them up. John was worried that Angel would use her powers and get noticed, so her mother made Angel promise she wouldn't ever use her powers out in public.

John was worried that if she were allowed to have friends, that they'd discover who she was, and that only bad things could come of it. But that was something her mother would not compromise on.

"_You can't keep her caged up her whole life, John! She needs friends!"_

"_She has me! Who loves her more than her own father?"_

"_She needs friends **her own age**."_

"_Friends her own age won't understand-"_

"_You can't keep her protected her whole life, John. You're going to have to let her grow on her own at some point."_

So her father taught her to blend in. He taught her to bring as little attention to herself as possible, he spent every morning covering her tattoos over with paint, and above all, he told her to only use her powers at home, when he was around to watch her.

She has been good her entire life. She's been an angel, because it's what she needed to do to blend in. Angels don't get noticed. Angels don't get attention. Angels are taken for granted.

She's through being the angel.

Jack has taken everything from her. It's only fair that she do the same to him.

* * *

"I love you." There's a certain tension to his voice this time.

Twelve footsteps, very quick and deliberate. Forty seconds of the elevator roaring to life. Two sets of blast doors opening and closing. All told, just under two minutes for Angel to wait for her father.

Jack stands silently with his arms folded over his chest for a few moments. Angel is the first to break the silence.

"Do you have another date tonight?"

He stares her down for a few seconds, watching her eyes, her mouth, her fingers. After a moment, he gives his answer, slowly. "I think you already know the answer to that."

She does, but Angel has a good poker face.

Even if she hadn't been watching the surveillance Jack had ordered on Moxxi, she knew him well enough to know that he would start getting possessive. The same cycle always repeats itself, over and over. Angel isn't sure if she's more curious about why he gets this way when a relationship turns serious, or why he always expects the next time to go differently, because she certainly knows it will always be the same.

"You're going to confront her, aren't you?"

_Confront_, of course, is a euphemism, and while both of them know it, neither is going to admit they know exactly what Angel means by it.

"Dammit Angel, you know I don't like you looking into my personal business."

"You shouldn't use that kind of language, _Dad_," she says, a biting tone to the last word.

"Don't test me, Angel." He folds his arms over her chest and narrows his eyes at her. "Not today."

She crosses her arms over her chest, mirroring his movement. They stare each other down in silence for a moment, each daring the other to speak up, neither yet willing to be the first to break. But there's something about the angry glint in her father's right eye that makes Angel give in first.

"So what's wrong with this one?" she asks, studying his one good eye carefully. Jack rolls his head from side to side, trying to avoid the question, so Angel presses on: "We both know I'm not a little girl anymore_. _Don't you think you owe me an answer on this?"

He looks at her for a moment, then relents. "I don't think she's good enough for you."

"For me. For _me_?" Angel scoffs. "I'm not the one trying to replace Mom. But she's good enough for _you_ to sleep with, I'm sure-"

"_Angel._"

She considers him for a few seconds, then her eyebrows slowly arch up in realization. "You didn't even tell her about me, did you?"

Jack is good at lying to a lot of people, but he's terrible at lying to his daughter. He shakes his head and opens his mouth, but no words come out.

Angel stares into Jack's eyes and slowly nods her head. Of _course_ he didn't. Why should he? What could _he_ possibly gain by telling her he has a daughter? "That's what I thought..."

"She's a _bandit,_ Angel. She-"

"Would you just _stop_? Would you stop pretending that this is all about me? Would you just _once_ admit that you're doing all of this for yourself?"

"Why, you ungrateful little-" Jack balls his hands into fists and swallows back the next word. "After _everything_ that I've done for you, and you – The, the, the _nerve_ you have, speaking to me like that–"

"Go."

Jack narrows his eyes. "_What_?"

"I'd like for you to leave right now," Angel says as calmly as she can muster.

Jack shakes his head slightly, a vein in his forehead, hidden behind his mask, throbbing.

"GET OUT!" Angel shouts, her voice amplified ten times by the speakers decking the walls.

Jack grinds his molars together, but bites his tongue and turns to leave. As the blast doors slowly open, he turns around to look back at her.

"You want to know what's wrong with her, Angel?" he asks, a grin spreading over his face, the same grin that he always gets when he thinks he's one step ahead.

Angel tilts her head to the side and raises her eyebrows, telling him to continue.

"She crossed me," he says in a low, menacing tone. Angel's eyes widen as she bites the inside of her cheek, and Jack lets out a low chuckle. "Goodnight, Angel," he tells her, just before the doors close between the two of them.

Angel's shoulders only relax slightly once she hears the elevator complete its journey to the surface, and the entry door opens and closes again.

* * *

Angel watches the feeds of the security cameras in Opportunity, waiting for Jack to pick his moment. He was angry when he left, and she has a dreadful feeling that he's about to do something rash. She knows she can't let that happen. She supposes she'd feel responsible for it, but even then, that's not the whole story.

The cameras give her a visual feed, but the city planners haven't yet installed microphones to pick up audio. Normally, she would be able to hack into Jack's ECHO and listen through that, but he left it behind. Angel assumes he did it just to stop her from interfering.

Of course, if he _really _didn't want her watching, he should've known better than to meet Moxxi in Opportunity again. But clearly he wants her to watch.

He looks casual enough, for a while. Moxxi doesn't look like she's aware anything is wrong. They're walking slowly together. Angel figures he must have told her they were going to the Lexicon, Opportunity's finest hotel, because when he leads her on a path away from it, she seems to look confused.

Angel switches to the next camera in the grid as they walk out of view. He's lead her into an alley. The way through is temporarily blocked by a chain link fence to guard off the construction yard, so tonight, it's a dead end.

Angel leans forward in her chair. Jack's body language has changed...

_Zoom in_.

...and the look on Moxxi's face tells her that she noticed it too.

Jack's back is turned towards the security camera. He slowly walks towards Moxxi, who is backing away from him just as slowly. Moxxi is soon backed into the corner of the chain link fence and the wall of Hyperion Bank. Jack reaches his right hand out for Moxxi's left arm, and that's when Angel notices it.

Moxxi's expression changes quicker than the blink of an eye. The confused arch of her eyebrow and the hurt look in her eyes are gone. Even underneath the makeup, Angel can see the same angry snarl from the mugshot.

Hacking into Moxxi's ECHO shouldn't be too difficult. All Angel needs to do is use the coordinates from the geo-tracking feature to find her ECHO's serial number.

Moxxi's right arm makes a move for the holster strapped to her thigh, but Jack grabs her arm before she can draw Rubi. Angel gets into Moxxi's ECHO just as she growls at Jack: "_Big_ fucking mistake."

Angel can hear a crunching sound as she watches Moxxi rear back and smash her forehead into Jack's face, sending him falling back to the ground as he clutches his nose in pain. Angel's hand goes up to cover her mouth instinctively.

"You broke by dose, you bitch!"

Jack slowly rolls over, resting on his knees and his right elbow, still clutching his nose with his left hand. Angel can see a small pool of blood already on the ground, and more on his hands. She leans forward, biting down on the knuckle of her index finger.

Moxxi delivers a kick to his gut, and he grunts as he lands on his side. "_Nobody_ threatens my children," she spits.

Angel sees Jack reach for his pocketwatch. She activates her microphone and tells Moxxi: "You should get out of there."

Angel sees the surprise on the woman's face from hearing a disembodied voice speaking into her ear, but the shock quickly wears off when she hears sirens going off.

"Let me worry about the police bots," she says. "You just need to get out of there."

Moxxi glowers down at Jack for a moment, but two approaching loader bots, painted dark blue with a black stripe down their sides, send her running.

"Convict detected. Apprehending criminal."

Angel thinks of how impressively quickly Moxxi moves as she infiltrates the City of Opportunity Police Loader network.

Jack pounds his fist on the ground as he looks up and sees units #074 and #075 give up pursuit of Moxxi.

Angel watches as he slowly stands up and walks towards the camera monitoring him. He stares up at it and shouts. Angel can't hear what he's saying, but she can read his lips easily enough, even despite the blood running down from his nose:

"You are in _big_ trouble!"

* * *

Angel waits until Moxxi makes it safely back to her place in the Deep Fathoms before contacting her again.

"I... can't believe you just did that," she says, a hint of awe in her voice.

Moxxi immediately takes the defensive. "Look, I don't know what your angle is-"

"No, no, you don't understand. I'm _glad_ you did it."

Angel bites her bottom lip, waiting for Moxxi to say something, say _anything_, but all she's met with is silence.

"He's had that coming for a long time," Angel continues. "I've been waiting for somebody to finally put that bastard in his place."

"Who _are_ you?" she asks.

"A friend of a friend. That's not important right now. Let's just say I have good reasons for wanting to see Jack suffer. I only wanted to contact you so... so I could tell you... _thank you_. "

Angel waits with bated breath for a response. Eventually, she hears Moxxi speak up, a hint of amusement in her voice. "It did feel pretty good..."

Angel smiles. "You have no idea."

With a quick mental command, the monitors in the Control Core power down. Angel slowly floats down and presses a button on the console beside her. The circular floor panel beneath her opens up, and a platform with a queen-sized bed on top of it rises up from the hole in the ground, filling the space the floor panel previously filled.

Angel slowly floats down into the bed, gently slipping beneath the covers.

She allows her mind to wander. The image of Moxxi putting her father in his place immediately comes to mind, and she smiles. Jack finally wronged somebody who wasn't afraid to fight back.

Angel knows her father: he will be livid. He'll want to take everything away from Moxxi.

She doesn't suppose it'll be too hard to make sure he doesn't. It's been a long time since she's played the role of Guardian Angel. She's glad to have the opportunity again. She knows it won't be safe for her to be out in the Deep Fathoms much longer, though, so far away from any population center that isn't a bandit town. First thing in the morning, she'll contact her again, and suggest that she move to Sanctuary, with Roland and the Raiders.

She stares up at the ceiling above her in silence, then bites her bottom lip.

Hyperion monitors and records every ECHO communication on Pandora. Every conversation, every late night drunken confession, every desperate broadcast is archived and encrypted for the security of the planet. But even the most advanced security measures can't keep Angel out.

She reaches into the files and quickly sorts out communications from all but one of Pandora's citizens. With a few moments of concentration, she isolates, splices, and processes a few files until she's left with a sound clip not even two seconds long.

_Play it._

The sound clip she manufactured plays, and Moxxi's voice sounds in her ear, telling her "I love you."

Angel closes her eyes and loses herself beneath the blankets. She doesn't need her monitors in order to conjure up Moxxi's image anymore.

It may not be real, but it's real enough for her.

* * *

"I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again." — F. Scott Fitzgerald


	2. I Get Wet

"Wild Nights! Wild Nights!  
Were I with thee  
Wild nights should be  
Our luxury!"

— Emily Dickinson

* * *

Maya's apartment is small and old.

"I prefer to think of it as _worn_," she explains helpfully to Gaige, and Gaige supposes maybe she's right. It probably was beautiful when it was first built, but how long ago was that? Forty years? Fifty? "I just like to think of all the history this place has seen."

"History?" Gaige asks, eyebrows raised in a curious arch.

Maya just smiles and shrugs. "I just like to think of what kind of people might have lived here before. What they were like. What dreams they had. Stuff like that."

Gaige glances around the apartment, comparing it to the lavish chambers she's sure Maya must have lived in back on Athenas – not that the ex-Goddess ever talks about it. Her mind conjures up images of brilliant finery: silk robes and velvet drapes, a bathroom that must have been bigger than this entire apartment, an open courtyard filled with red and white roses, hydrangeas, lavender, and cherry blossoms. How somebody like her, somebody who was raised in extravagance, could be so content with something so plain and homely is completely beyond Gaige.

Gaige isn't much for charm. Truth be told, she would be more comfortable living in a city like Opportunity, if not for the small detail that everything in the city would try to kill her the minute she set foot within its limits. Her home back on Eden-5 wasn't much to look at, but it seems positively palatial compared to the meager spaces available in Sanctuary. Her taste is more modern and less refined.

"But I suppose you're not too interested in that," Maya says, snapping Gaige out of her thoughts.

"Huh?" she asks, and Maya just smiles softly at her. "Sorry, I was just... thinking."

"Yeah? About?"

Gaige presses her lips together, considers Maya for a moment, then shakes her head. "It's not important," she explains with a hand wave.

Maya's shoulders briefly shudder in what Gaige thinks was a chuckle. "Have a seat," she says, gesturing to the couch in the middle of the room. "Dinner should be ready by now, after that little tour."

Gaige smooths out her skirt against the backs of her thighs and takes a seat on the couch, mindful not to sit too close to the edge. A thought slowly occurs to her as Maya walks to the kitchen. "You can cook?" she asks, glancing back at her.

Maya looks over her shoulder, locking eyes with Gaige. "Can I cook?" she asks, amused at the question.

"Well, I mean..." Gaige chooses her next words carefully, afraid she might bring up something Maya doesn't want to discuss. "I just assumed you must have had your own personal chef back on Athenas..."

"Yeah. That doesn't mean I liked having everything done for me."

Gaige breathes a sigh of relief. Maya doesn't sound at all sore about the subject. "Right, sorry," she says, letting her hands fall into her lap.

"Don't worry about it," Maya explains, offering Gaige a bowl before sitting down beside her, leaving a reasonable, though not gaping, space between them. Gaige takes the bowl in her hand and looks interestedly at its contents before glancing sideways at Maya. The Siren chuckles. "Udon noodles with green onion, carrots, skag meat, and some pepper for a little kick."

"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Gaige says with a chuckle. Picking up the fork in her right hand, she asks, "No chopsticks, huh?"

Maya lets out a snort of laughter. "I can't use those to save my life."

Gaige chuckles. She can use chopsticks pretty well, thank you very nice, and she's a bit disappointed not to get the chance to show off. As she samples the dish, she lets out an involuntary "wow" before taking another bite.

Maya grins. "You're surprised?"

Gaige supposes she shouldn't be, but it seems like she's always finding out new things about Maya that impress her. "Well, I'm no food critic, but it's delicious."

A brief silence falls between them, and Gaige focuses on the soft music playing, trying to figure out if she even knows what language the singer is speaking. Before she can dwell on it too long, she slowly becomes aware that Maya is watching her. As soon as she looks over, the Siren speaks up.

"So why is it that you're so interested in engineering?"

Gaige slowly shovels another forkful of noodles into her mouth as she considers the question. "Well. I mean, I made DT as a deterrent against bullying..."

Once she's satisfied she isn't interrupting, Maya asks, "So it came out of an interest in helping people?"

Gaige tilts her head to the side. "Yeah, I guess. I dunno. Ever since I was young, I've always really liked creating things, you know? The satisfaction of making something real." Animated by the question, Gaige sits up straighter, gesticulating with her free right hand. "Of bringing a vision of something in your head to life."

Maya smiles. "That's very romantic."

"Romantic?" Gaige asks, puzzled.

"In the archaic sense," she explains after taking a bite of noodles, and Gaige nods in agreement.

"I just really enjoy doing it, I guess." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "The kind of enjoyment people get from writing a story they're really proud of, or recording music, stuff like that – that's what I get from working on DT, you know? I'm sure it's probably hard to understand, getting so excited over science, but the thought that I can bring a hunk of metal and wires to life the way I do..."

"Who knows what else you can bring to life with those hands?" Maya asks, absent-mindedly playing with her hair as she notices the life in Gaige's eyes.

"Exactly!" she says with a giggle, and Maya lifts her glass of wine to her lips to hide the smile playing across them.

Gaige sneaks a peek up at Maya, then turns sideways to face her and clears her throat.

"So... and feel free to tell me if this is too personal," she starts, and Maya looks over at her curiously. "But sometimes I see you heading to the Fast Travel at night, and..."

"You were wondering where I go," Maya finishes for her. Gaige nods, and Maya hums in thought for a moment. "Well, I_ could_ tell you..."

Gaige slowly nods again. She knew that was probably too personal of a question.

"...but I'd much rather _show_ you."

* * *

She supposed it was kind of childish to feel insulted. After all, what does a birthday really mean if she wasn't even living on the planet she was born on? It was arbitrary, wasn't it?

Besides, it's not like nineteen is much of a milestone. The eighteenth birthday is an exciting one, but nineteen? Nothing happens at nineteen. And it wasn't like she mentioned it to any of them. Not directly, anyway. She did in her ECHOcast, but she wasn't really surprised that apparently none of them subscribed to it.

With the day's missions completed, she headed to Moxxi's bar while the rest went off to sell the day's spoils, or to gamble away their earnings at the slot machines, or to take a shower and feel clean again, if only until the next time they would all head out again. She sat down on one of the several empty stools and rested her left elbow on the bar with a clunk. Distracted by the noise, Moxxi glanced over.

"What'll it be, sugar?" she asked, casually adjusting her hat and giving Gaige a trademark bat of the eyelashes.

Generally, she would order a Vladof Ice, mostly because she couldn't stand the taste of rakk ale. That night, she thought back to her birthdays back home. Memories of the local diner where her parents first met, of the black and white checkerboard floor pattern, the neon lights on the walls. It was all very garish and vintage, but there was a strange part of her that actually liked it. It was a ritual of theirs, visiting that old diner every time her birthday rolled around. The food was decent, nothing that would get written about in magazines or featured on shows on the ECHOnet, but their desserts were amazing, and there was one in particular that this woman of science and ass-kickery was craving.

"Can I get a root beer float?"

Moxxi smiled. "Comin' right up, sugar."

She didn't particularly care if it was childish, because the thought comforted her all the same. Sure, she had done a lot of growing up in the relatively short time she'd been on Pandora, but she didn't think that meant she had to give up _everything_.

Moxxi even got the little details right, without Gaige even asking for them. The whipped cream, the cherry on the top, the frosted glass mug. And sure, it wasn't as sweet as the ones back home, and the root beer wasn't as strong, but Gaige wasn't going to let those little details ruin it. She would've liked the one back home, and she would've liked to have spent the day with the few close friends she had back on Eden-5, but that didn't really matter. That world wasn't hers anymore. Hers was the world where she hunted down Frankensteinian combinations of skags and rakk on her birthday, and while it wouldn't have been her first choice of activity, at least she got to spend it with the people she had grown to call her friends. It wasn't the same, but it was just what she needed that night.

Gaige smiled down at the empty glass in front of her. Maybe it was silly, but that dessert did manage to bring a little sanity to a world of madness and chaos. "Thanks, Moxxi," she said, and the bartender grinned back at her.

As Gaige reached in her vest pocket for her wallet – she was never very big on purses – Moxxi raised a hand to stop her. "This one's on the house, birthday girl," she said with a wink. Gaige looked up at her curiously, but before she could ask, Moxxi just added mysteriously, "A lady knows."

Gaige thanked her again before heading back to her room, grinning to herself the whole way. As she was about to close the apartment door behind her, a familiar voice stopped her. Gaige eagerly opened the door back up at the sound of it.

"Hey," Maya greeted her as she stepped inside, one arm folded casually behind her back. "I didn't say this earlier 'cause I didn't think you'd want me to make a big deal out of it, but... happy birthday, Gaige."

Maya stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Gaige in a hug, which the younger woman was quick to return. She closed her eyes, letting herself get lost in the moment, fighting back the impulse to sniff Maya's hair. As she felt Maya start pulling away, she slowly did the same, not daring to let their embrace linger too long.

"Thanks," she said, hoping the grin on her face didn't look quite as goofy as it felt. She collapsed on the couch with a sigh, then quietly slipped her shoes off. "It means a lot to me that you remembered."

"Of course. Oh, I, uh, got you something," Maya continued, producing a small book from behind her back.

Gaige casually waved her hand. "You didn't have to do that," she said, though secretly she's ecstatic that Maya put forth the effort.

"I know," Maya explained with a nod. "I wanted to." She glances down at the book before holding it out towards Gaige.

She reached out and took it in her hands, running her right index finger along its edge. "_Hydromel and Rue_?" She looked from the cover back up to Maya.

"Poetry," Maya explained with a grin. "By Marie-Madeleine. One of my favorite collections. I think you might like it."

Gaige offered Maya a crooked grin. "I don't remember telling you I'm into poetry." It was somewhat of a guilty pleasure of hers, but she had never mentioned it to another soul on Pandora, and now she found herself wondering just what else Maya knew about her that she wasn't letting on.

"Mm. I think you might like it," Maya repeated, with a knowing smirk on her face.

* * *

They sit together on top of a towel laid out on the grass, a polite space between them. The humid night air hangs heavy, and even the stalkers in the area seem too drowsy to do much more than lie about. For several minutes, they sit there in silence, merely content to enjoy the scenery: the lushness of the intensely green grass, the subtle blueness of the rock interspersed in the landscape, the glint of the moonlight reflected in the lake in front of them, and the gushing sound of the waterfall that gives life to it.

"I like to come out here after long days," Maya explains to her, her voice quieter than usual. "There's something soothing about swimming under the night sky, don't you think? Like it's just me and the water and the stars... it's very..." She leans her head back, as if hoping to find the next word written somewhere in the starry sky above. "Purifying."

Gaige slowly nods in silent agreement, though something she had overheard Maya say earlier starts nagging at her. "I thought you hated silence," she says after a moment. "Something about how it reminds you of the Abbey?"

Maya lets out an amused chuckle and looks at Gaige out of the corner of her eye. "I don't think I mentioned anything about _silence_..."

Gaige shrugs. "Fair enough."

"Besides," Maya continues, casually slipping her shoes off. "I didn't hate the Abbey because it was quiet. I hated the Abbey because it was the _Abbey_."

Worried she might have brought up a sore subject, Gaige fidgets and quietly squeaks out an "I'm sorry" as she rubs the back of her neck.

"Don't do that," Maya says, not even bothering to look up as she takes her socks off.

Gaige frowns. "Do what?"

"You're apologizing again. Stop it." She sets her shoes and socks on the grass beside her, then turns to face Gaige. "I don't want you feeling like you have to apologize to me for every little thing, especially when you didn't even do anything wrong."

Gaige smiles, despite herself. Apologizing too much is a bad habit of hers, but now she finds herself trying to remember just one time when she's heard Maya apologize for anything. She fails. "I just thought you were mad that I brought it up."

"Of course not," Maya reassures her. "And don't ever apologize for being curious."

A silence falls over them, and for a while, Gaige is content to let it linger and take in the view. The air hangs heavy, warm, and wet, but it falls just short of being uncomfortable. Maya leans back, placing her hands flat on the ground behind her. Gaige watches as she shuts her eyes and lazily slides her feet over the grass.

Silence – real, blissful, comfortable silence – is almost unheard of on Pandora. Train tracks litter many of the civilized areas, bringing with them the roaring, whistling locomotives. Hyperion's mining operations shake the very ground. Scooter's philosophy when it comes to vehicles seems to be "more noise, more power". Even the wildlife is loud, though this is usually to warn off potential threats. And all of this is to say nothing of the gunfire that doesn't only follow the Vault Hunters around.

But here in the Highlands, there's a tranquility in the air, without a growl of a skag or the shriek of a stalker to be heard. Even the air itself is still, as if it didn't want to disturb the two of them. Gaige lets out a quiet sigh as she watches Maya basking in the stillness of the night. For a rare moment, she forgets she's on Pandora completely. A curious floating sensation that usually only comes over her for a few seconds when she first wakes up in the morning. She supposes she understands why Maya enjoys coming out here: it is a welcome change from the frenzy they're both accustomed to.

Gaige clears her throat politely. "So... swimming, huh?" she asks, moving to slip her own shoes off.

Maya nods distractedly, then, as if she had just processed the question, opens her eyes, looks over at her, and asks, "Can you swim? I mean, with your arm, and all."

Gaige chuckles and holds her metal arm aloft, wiggling its fingers. "You didn't think I'd build this amazing piece of machinery and not waterproof it, did you?"

"Right," she says, nodding. "Stupid question."

"It's a good spot for it, though," Gaige notes as she looks around the lake. The water is calm. A short waterfall feeds into it, and a small stream provides the flow downhill to the rest of the Highlands. The elevated position offers an almost dizzying view of the expanse of rolling green hills below. It's large, too, one of the bigger bodies of water Gaige has seen on Pandora, with the exception of the ocean off the Southern Shelf. Big enough for two people to swim around comfortably.

"Everyone needs a place where they can be alone with their thoughts. This is mine."

She nods. "See, now this suits you."

Maya chuckles. "It actually does remind me a lot of the courtyard back at the Abbey."

The two let out a slow breath, almost in unison, and for a while they just sit distracted by their own thoughts before Maya speaks up again.

"So what's yours? Your place where you like to be alone, I mean."

"Oh. Uhm..." Gaige frowns. She does what she can to make her apartment her own, but deep down she knows it won't ever be like her old bedroom back home. And she certainly hasn't found anywhere out in the wild of Pandora to call her own. "I dunno. Don't really have one."

"Really? There's not _one_ place you can just lose yourself with your thoughts?"

"Do my headphones count?" she asks, half-jokingly, and Maya just smiles back at her. "I mean... yeah, my music I guess really helps me escape for a while. Sometimes I just like dancing by myself in my room, jumping around like a maniac, stuff like that."

"Wait... jumping around? That was you?"

"Er... yeah?"

Maya laughs. "Wow. I've heard that before, and I thought it was like, Axton and Lilith... you know."

"Fucking?" Gaige suggests helpfully.

The Siren places her palm to her face and stifles laughter. "Something like that, yeah."

She laughs and shakes her head. "So. What do you think about when you're swimming?" she asks, before another silence can fall between them. She isn't sure if she might be getting too personal again, but she's too curious not to ask. "Anything in particular?"

Maya considers the question in silence for a moment, a ghost of a smile on her face. After a moment, she gives her answer: "Mm. Jumping, actually."

"Ah! Am I rubbing off on you?" she teases.

"Could be," she says with a playful smirk.

"Okay, I'll bite. What's that mean?"

"Do you ever wonder why I left Athenas?" Maya asks as she stares up at the stars, seemingly changing the subject, but Gaige knows her well enough to know that's not the case.

She follows Maya's gaze up to the sky before looking back at her eyes. "Because you wanted to find out more about Sirens, right?"

"No, no, no, you're misunderstanding me. That's why I came here. What I mean is why I left _there_."

She isn't sure she sees a difference, but Gaige attempts another guess anyway. "Because you killed their leader?"

"Someone would've taken Sophis's place. Hell, some of the other monks were begging me to stay because they knew once I was gone, they had no power over the planet. I could've made them bend to my will, but I left." She turns to face Gaige. "You wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because being a goddess is _boring_," she says, and Gaige laughs quietly at how absurd the idea is. "See? I know it sounds silly, but it's true. They took twenty-seven years of my life away. Twenty-seven years of singing and dancing and laughing and hating and loving and _everything_. Twenty-seven years of lost time that I intend to make up for. Staying there was never an option. If I stayed there, I never would've been able to move past it."

Gaige looks down at her striped stockings. "You ever wonder what it would've been like if you stayed? Maybe if things happened differently?" she asks. She's sure that the question is completely transparent to Maya, and she almost feels ashamed to admit to her that she still has trouble moving on from her old home.

"I used to," Maya admits, glancing down at her feet. To her credit, she doesn't let on that she knows why Gaige is asking. "But what's the point? When I left, I promised myself I was done second-guessing myself. Dwelling on it is pointless. I can't go back and change it. All I can do is make the most of what I have now. Why should I worry about what I could've done when I could focus on everything that I still have left to do?"

Her eyes falling pointedly on the lake in front of them, Gaige slowly nods in understanding. "So your philosophy is more like... why stand at the edge of the water when you could jump in instead?"

Maya just grins back at her in response.

"I can dig that," Gaige says, smoothing her skirt out over her lap. "Getting wet. Nice."

Maya arches an eyebrow. "Getting _what_ now?"

Gaige laughs and turns her head to make eye contact with her. "Not like _that_."

Amused, Maya lets out a short chuckle. "Okay, then. Tell me what, ah... _wetness_," and she punctuates the word with a pregnant pause, "...means to you."

"Okay... okay." She nods and slowly straightens up, rolling her head from side to side. "Wet, to me, means being, like, soaking wet afterward."

Maya's eyes widen, and she mouths a silent _wow_ before grinning and asking, "After _what_?"

"You have a really dirty mind, you know that?"

The Siren just grins and says, with a flourish of her right hand, "Please. Continue."

Gaige nods and looks back out over the water. "Anyway. That's just, I dunno, a way I like to live my life, I guess. Like when I used to go to concerts back on Eden-5, or even when I'm just dancing around in my room like a total nerd. To get all wet – you know, all _sweaty_ like that – to pump out that much energy, that much water out of my body... It just makes me feel better, you know? Even when I'm doin' stuff like working on DT, or when we're out there hunting stalkers or bullymongs... I feel like I did a good job if I'm sweaty when I'm done. So... I guess getting wet, for me... It's just about not holding back, you know? Not restraining yourself."

"Not caring what others think," Maya adds, and Gaige nods enthusiastically.

"Exactly! Or trying not to, anyway," she says with a snort.

"See, that's what I like about you."

Gaige sits up a little straighter, and a satisfied little smirk plays across her face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think some people just spend too much energy worrying about other people, you know?"

"I'm sayin'. That shit gets you nowhere."

Maya nods in silent agreement, and then the sound of the waterfall is all that can be heard.

Gaige frowns, wiggling her toes restlessly. She's not one to enjoy a peaceful silence. Silence is boring. Silence is irritating. Silence excludes. Silence and wetness don't mix. Wetness represents excitement, and fun, and happiness, and unconditional acceptance. And who wouldn't want that?

Hey, it's not _her_ fault the word has another, entirely different, meaning.

Fed up with the quiet, Gaige clears her throat. "So... help me understand something, here."

"What's that?"

"Well, I mean..." She sighs and picks at the hem of her skirt. "So I get that, obviously, twenty-seven years of lies had a lot to do with you leaving. But I mean... the monks gave you everything they could, right?"

"Except freedom," Maya interjects.

"So was that it? Was that what made you so unsatisfied with life there?"

"Well..." Maya's eyes flicker down to the ground for a moment, and Gaige is sure she's finally struck a chord in her that she wishes she hadn't. After a long moment of silence, she continues, slowly. "There was... somebody. Not long before I left."

Gaige's eyes widen. Everything about Maya's body language screams uncomfortable, and part of her regrets even asking, but a more curious part of her is amazed that Maya trusts her enough to tell her about it. "You mean, like, romantically?" she asks quietly.

"She was..." Maya lets out a dry chuckle as she turns her gaze up to the stars. "She was one of my maidservants, which, I know how that must sound, but... trust me, I wouldn't have ever abused my power like that."

Gaige nods. "Of course."

"I don't want to bore you too much with details, but... well, obviously that was something the monks wouldn't have been very happy with, had they ever found out about it. I was supposed to be above mortal passions, especially romance and lust. That's what they said, anyway." She shakes her head and rubs the back of her neck. "Like somehow if they said it to me enough, it would become true."

After a pause, Gaige lets out a short, quiet laugh. "Kind of ironic, isn't it? One of the servants they made look after you ends up giving you what they tried to keep away from you your whole life."

Maya smiles. "You know, I'd never really thought of it like that. Kind of poetic."

"Poetic... yeah, that's it. Say... that reminds me..." Feeling the space between them is inappropriately wide for such a conversation, she scoots closer, so that their legs are almost touching. She looks up at Maya, watching her silver eyes scan the starry sky. "I wanna tell you something," she says quietly, so that she's sure Maya is hanging on her every word. She watches her blue lips, trying to figure out if they just spread into a small smile or if it's just a trick of the light playing on her skin.

The Siren slowly turns to face her, and the two of them lock gazes. "Mmhmm?"

"You were right... I did like those poems..."

This time, she's sure she can see a grin playing across Maya's lips.

Emboldened, Gaige slowly inhales before continuing. "Her descriptions are just so... _real_, you know? The imagery she uses for lust, it's just so... so _honest_, don't you think? So genuine."

Maya nods slowly in agreement. "It's hard not to feel the passion, the emotion behind every poem, every line."

"Like the words bringing the feelings to life," Gaige finishes, breathlessly, and Maya smiles back at her before slowly glancing back up at the sky. She thinks she can see a sorrowful longing in those eyes. She extends her hand towards Maya's, but stops short of touching it, thinking the sudden cold of the steel on her skin might upset her. Quietly, she asks, "Do you miss her?"

She sighs and shakes her head. "I mean, obviously I cared for her a lot, and it killed me to leave her behind... she'll always be special to me. We gave each other what we needed at the time. But what I wanted then isn't the same thing I want now, you know?"

Knowing Gaige is watching them, Maya lets another smile play across her lips. Intrigued, the redhead leans forward and asks, "And what is it you want now?"

Maya waits a few seconds before answering. "I wanna go swimming."

Gaige giggles and bites her bottom lip, watching as Maya stands up and walks to the water's edge. She sticks a foot underneath its surface, testing the water. Pleasantly cool. A welcome change from the hot, heavy air that's starting to cause Gaige's shirt to cling to her skin. Maya unbuckles her belt, tosses it aside, and then starts taking her pants off. Gaige sits up straight. Dinner _and_ a show?

"Are you gonna just sit there?" she asks, not even looking over her shoulder at the redhead as she tosses her pants aside on a large, flat rock.

As Maya moves her hand to the back of her neck and starts unzipping her combat suit, it suddenly dawns on Gaige that she didn't really mean swimming.

The combat suit lands unceremoniously beside the pair of pants resting on the rock, and a small splash punctuates the air as Maya dives into the lake. Gaige quickly gets to her feet and stands on a flat slab of rock jutting into the lake. Maya bobs her head above the water and grins up at her. She watches as the light from those tattoos dances beneath the water's surface, bending and refracting with the ripples and the current.

"Isn't that cold?" she asks.

Maya laughs, and answers Gaige's question with another question that makes the redhead giggle. "Does it matter? Come on, you said you liked getting wet."

Another set of clothes joins Maya's on the rock beside the lake, and another splash punctuates the warm night air of the Highlands.

All at once, Gaige understands why Maya comes out here so often. The stress of the day seems to be carried off her shoulders by the gentle current. Without any trees or mountains around, the entire night sky is visible above her. There are so few places on the planet that genuinely feel peaceful to her, and she figures this is probably as close to paradise on Pandora that she's likely to come. She shuts her eyes and lets herself sink beneath the surface. The soft gushing sound of water flowing past her eardrums swallows her. A long stalk of seagrass tickles the back of her left leg. She presses her feet flat against the lake bed, wiggling her toes in the loose sand before pushing back to the surface.

She takes a deep gulp of air and opens her eyes as she shakes her wet hair out of her face. She looks over and sees Maya standing on the shore of the lake, her back to the water. Gaige lets out a slow, steady breath as she takes in every small detail: The tiny flecks of grass and dirt on the sole of one of her arched feet. The graceful softness of the tattoos that run up her left leg, contrasting with the clear definition of her muscles. Shadows playing in the shallow dimples on the small of her back. The sheen of moonlight in her hair. Tiny rivulets of water running down her spine, leaving spotted trails of water droplets that she suddenly has the urge to lick slowly off of her. But above all that, she's captivated by the way the soft light bounces off of her body. The hints of moonlight shimmering and sparkling in the tiny droplets that cling to her curves. Beneath her radiant skin shine the stars of the entire night sky.

"Relaxing," Maya says slowly, glancing over her shoulder at Gaige, "isn't it?"

"Breathtaking," Gaige agrees, smiling back at her.

She watches as Maya wades into the water, then swims towards her. When she stops, their bodies teasingly close, she lifts her tattooed hand out of the water and runs it through Gaige's hair.

"So what was your favorite one?" Maya asks in a hushed voice. Gaige doesn't need her to clarify what she's asking about.

She isn't feeling nearly as confident as she looks, but she was quick to learn that looking confident in everything she does is the only way to be taken seriously on a planet like Pandora. She swallows, then traces her fingertip over Maya's wet shoulder as she gives her answer. She speaks so quietly that Maya has to lean into her to hear it, causing her back to arch involuntarily at the contact. "'Foiled Sleep'."

Her eyes sparkling, Maya leans back and watches her for a moment before she speaks, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Mmm... now, I _thought_ you might like that one..."

* * *

Gaige looked up at her, curiously, then down at the book, tracing her index finger down its spine. The edges of the fabric cover were worn, and the pages were slightly yellowed. Signs of wear. Like somebody had read it dozens of times over. Maya sat down on the couch beside Gaige and continued. "The author was only 17 when she published that – not much younger than you. But there's a certain..." She hummed to herself, as if trying to coax out the right word. "... a certain precociousness to her work. A real emotional maturity beyond her years..."

Charmed, Gaige flashed a smile at her. Maya always got so vibrant when talking about poetry, like something inside of her was glowing at the mere thought of it. And if she could get that excited about poetry...

"More than that," Maya said, her voice growing slightly softer, "her writing is genuinely honest in its emotion, but... what I really admire is how _bold_ it is..."

"Bold," Gaige repeated, as if testing the word out.

"I think people aren't bold enough," Maya continued, her eyes sparkling. "Too often we're content to let opportunities pass us by. I think that's just tragic, don't you? Life's too short to spend it being ashamed of ourselves. We are who we are. We shouldn't have to apologize for that. We're here, and we have ourselves, and each other, and that's all we really need, isn't it?"

Gaige didn't realize it at the time, but Maya wasn't using the word 'we' in the general sense.

"Life is a fucking crazy ride. But we can't appreciate it if we're too afraid of jumping in and really _living_ it."

"Jumping in, huh?" Gaige asked. Smiling playfully, she added, "What exactly did those monks teach you?"

Maya laughed. "Not them. They wanted a pure image. Cleanliness and godliness."

"But you're not interested in being good," Gaige offered, and Maya grinned at her.

"You know what they say. The good girls go to heaven, but the bad girls go everywhere."

* * *

The door locks with a satisfying click. Gaige's hand makes a move for the light switch, but Maya's voice stops her.

"Leave it on," she whispers, her hands finding Gaige's shoulders and grabbing the towel draped over them. Gaige releases her grip on it, letting Maya slide it off her with a flourish. "I don't want you missing a thing tonight."

Her heart practically beats out of her chest. With a sweaty palm, she grabs onto the plain white towel wrapped around Maya's body – both of their outfits still lay forgotten back in the Highlands. Slowly, she tugs at the towel, until it yields and falls off of the Siren's body, landing with a soft thump at her feet. Her mouth is dry and she's having trouble catching her breath and her brain can't even seem to form a coherent sentence, but the sound of Maya's voice in her ear slows everything down.

"_Breathe_, Gaige."

She closes her eyes and slowly breathes in, her right hand finding Maya's waist. She feels Maya sitting back on the bed and takes her lead, kneeling astride her hips and draping her arms over Maya's shoulders. Maya runs her fingertips along Gaige's jawline and guides her into a kiss, letting out a delighted little moan as Gaige's arms hook around her neck.

When they pull apart for air, Gaige lets out a contented sigh and looks into Maya's reassuring eyes. Nice. She's a good kisser. Very nice, very warm, and so satisfyingly... _wet_. Maya smiles at her and lies back, pulling Gaige down on top of her, guiding her into another, deeper kiss.

Gaige slides her left hand onto Maya's stomach, and the Siren lets out a small gasp accompanied by a sudden arching of her back. "Cold fingers," she whispers between kisses.

"Mmm... I can fix that," she murmurs, sliding the cold steel up and down Maya's right side, warming it on her skin.

Maya's hand finds Gaige's cheek, and Gaige leans into the touch, captivated by the warmth that seems to spill out of those fingers and sink into her skin. She feels Maya's lips grazing her cheek and her ear, and her voice, soft like velvet, drips into her ear. "You sure about this?"

Gaige picks her head up and looks into Maya's crystalline eyes. Her heart thumping in her chest, her shortness of breath, they aren't from anxiety. She's wanted this for too long. "Sure as I've ever been," she says, before leaning down for a kiss that consumes every other thought that she has.

As she kisses her way along her neck, Maya lets out a low moan. "Mmm... Gaige..." She relishes at how right her name sounds rolling off her tongue.

She keeps laying kisses over her neck and shoulder, her right hand caressing the skin on the Siren's side.

"Gaige... your hand..." Maya lets out a pained grunt.

She picks her head up and looks at Maya, then gasps upon seeing the grimace on her face and takes her metallic hand off the back of Maya's neck. "I'm sorry!" she squeaks out, and Maya's face relaxes as she releases the pressure. "Fuck. Are you okay?"

Maya looks into her eyes, then guides Gaige's ear down to her mouth. "I thought I told you to _stop apologizing_," she whispers.

Gaige stays frozen for a moment, then giggles, nods, and plants a kiss on Maya's cheek. She's right. She doesn't want to apologize for anything tonight. She brushes a strand of steel blue hair out of Maya's face, then starts kissing along the azure markings on her left shoulder.

Maya's fingertips graze along Gaige's spine, sending tiny pulses of warmth up and down through her body, small tastes of the energy coiled up inside her, ready to be released. Her hands aren't hurried: rather, they move slowly and deliberately, savoring every moment they have. Gaige's eyes move from Maya's left arm to her own.

"Mmh. Here, let me..." Gaige props herself onto her elbows, then moves her right hand to her left arm. With a little effort, she pries open the metallic panel on it, revealing a haphazard mess of wires, circuits, and pistons. As she places the steel palm flat on Maya's chest, over her heart, she points at a red switch and whispers, "Turn that on."

Gaige licks her lips and watches as Maya's eyes lock with hers before looking down to the switch. Maya's right hand moves down from Gaige's cheek to her arm, and she flicks the switch over. A small motor embedded in Gaige's arm comes to life, making a quiet buzzing sound as her hand starts vibrating against Maya's chest. Gaige snickers as she sees Maya's eyes widen in surprise.

"Is there a..." Maya lets out a soft chuckle and quirks an eyebrow as they lock gazes. "..._practical_ use for that?"

Gaige lays a soft kiss on Maya's lips and starts sliding her robotic hand down over the Siren's body. "Depends on what you mean by _practical_," she teases, fingertips tracing along Maya's abs.

She traces her lips over Maya's collarbone, and Maya bucks her hips as two steel fingers slip slowly inside her. Gaige buries her face into the crook of Maya's neck, sucking on her skin, moaning as she feels a soft rumbling in Maya's chest. She works on finding a steady rhythm with her left hand, fingers curling inside her, responding to the rise and fall of Maya's hips, grazing her lips down one of the Siren's breasts and her free hand over the other, and–

Oh, God, why is she screaming? As soon as she picks her head up, Maya's hands grab onto her hair, guiding her face back down to her chest. She struggles to keep the rhythm steady, between her own rapid heartbeat and the waves of energy she can feel rippling from Maya's body. She works her lips over her skin, teasing her with her tongue, her forehead resting against the crook of Maya's neck, comfortably and perfectly filling the space between her neck and shoulder.

Nails dig into Gaige's back as she's pulled closer, and she feels Maya start trembling as the pulses of energy grow hotter and stronger as she brings her closer. She licks at Maya's chest, savoring the taste of her skin, and she feels Maya's leg hook around her hip as she moves in her and she moans as her name spills from Maya's lips like warm honey as Gaige brings her over the edge and Maya rides out each last wave of pleasure until she collapses back and just lies there, breathing heavily.

Gaige lets out a satisfied little moan, content for a moment to lay her head on Maya's chest and feel her heartbeat thumping against her cheek, seemingly in time with her own. When she feels soft fingertips caressing her back, she presses her hands onto the mattress and eases herself up, and Maya guides her into a tender kiss.

She opens her eyes and looks down at her. A thin layer of sweat covers her fair skin, and her hair, still wet from the lake, sticks out at awkward angles, but Maya has never looked more beautiful to Gaige as she does right now. She plants another kiss on her soft lips, then, grinning, Maya slowly guides her onto her back.

She looks up at her, silvery-blue hair framing her face, the light shining through it like a halo of ice. She looks into those eyes, piercingly silver like the driven snow, and those cyan lips, glowing with that maddening, exhilarating energy beneath them.

Maya smiles down at her, and the tattoos painted on her body begin to pulse light in a slow, steady rhythm.

As the Siren kisses her way down her chest and her stomach, leaving a warm trail in the wake of her lips, Gaige's right hand searches for the tattooed one running down her left side. As she finds it, she lets out, in a shallow breath, a single word, as if testing how it tasted on her tongue. "Maya..."

It would be the last intelligible sound Gaige would make for much of the night.

* * *

Ah, me! I cannot sleep at night;  
And when I shut my eyes, forsooth,  
I cannot banish from my sight  
The vision of her slender youth

She stands before me lover-wise,  
Her naked beauty fair and slim  
She smiles upon me, and her eyes  
With over-fierce desire grow dim

Slowly, she leans to me. I meet  
The passion of her gaze anew,  
And then her laughter, clear and sweet,  
Thrills all the hollow silence through.

O, siren, with the mocking tongue!  
O beauty, lily-sweet and white!  
I see her, slim and fair and young  
And ah! I cannot sleep at night.

— Marie-Madeleine, "Foiled Sleep"


End file.
